Aptly for a franchise celebrating its 30th birthday this year, Need for Speed is on a bit of a nostalgia trip at the moment. The last few updates for Unbound have been heavily inspired by past titles in the series, with the latest, Volume 9, drawing from a game that’s surely in with a shout of being the NFS GOAT: 2005’s Most Wanted.
Let’s be real, there’s only one car you picture when you think of the original Most Wanted (unless you’re me, in which case it’s the horrifyingly modified Chevrolet Cobalt you smashed out a significant early portion of the game with): the E46 BMW M3 GTR cover car.
BMW M3 GTR – side
The car the player starts the game with before it’s sabotaged and stolen by main antagonist and general bellend Razor, the silver and blue coupe quite possibly the most iconic car from the entire 30-year history of NFS full stop. It undoubtedly did more for the fame of the real M3 GTR – a V8-powered version of the E46 designed to go GT racing – than its nevertheless impressive motorsport exploits.
A reinterpreted version of the car appears in the Volume 9 update for Unbound, as one of the cars that can be acquired through the new ‘Lockdown’ game mode that sees you track down and steal high-value cars.
BMW M3 GTR – interior
Not content with this digital drive down memory lane, though, BMW itself is now getting in on the action. It’s taken one of its own real-life M3 GTRs and wrapped it in a perfect replica of the Most Wanted paint scheme, and it’s putting it on display at BMW Welt in Munich.
This is basically a smaller, free exhibition space across the road from Beemer’s main museum, the car clearly having been deemed culturally significant enough to sit pride of place in Beemer’s hometown.
BMW M3 GTR – rear
It’s far from the first time the Most Wanted GTR has been recreated in real life – there have been at least a couple of replicas in the UK alone, one of which was sadly burned to the ground in a garage fire last year. As far as we’re aware, though, it is the first time a genuine M3 GTR has worn the livery in real life.
If you want to see it, you need to get yourself over to Munich between 27 November 2024 and 6 January 2025. Helpfully, that coincides with the city’s massive Christmas market if you need a thinly-veiled excuse to drag someone else along.
